RIDING DRAG / A ROSE AMONG THORNS

PHOTOS: Mammaw Guffey with one of her Great-Great-Grand-babies and in a Five Generation Photo with l-r front- Mammaw Guffey, Ruth Guffey Hill, back l-r -Great-Grest-Grandson Hoss Hill, Grandson David Hill, Son Grady Guffey and Great-Grand-Daughter Dara Hill Steele. (November 2009, Red Bank/Chattanooga, TN)

        
                A ROSE AMONG THORNS

We headed east from Oklahoma as soon as David made it in from Colorado. It was not how we planned on spending Thanksgiving, but life makes changes as it passes by. Our Thanksgiving dinner consisted of a package of sunflower seeds and a Hershey bar that were in the truck when we pulled out. It was enough though, because our minds and our hearts were not on feasting. We were going to Tennessee, not for Thanksgiving but to celebrate the life of my husband’s Mammaw Guffey. She danced through the gates of Heaven on Nov. 22nd at the age of 93.


In the last 30 years I have been allowed to claim her as my Mammaw too. To have been loved by her is my greatest honor. I am not always the easiest person to get along with. I told her someone had described me as prickly, but she put it in perspective. She told me that roses aren’t roses without thorns around them. We laughed that day, and it brings a smile to my face now as I thank God for all she was and all she will remain in our hearts. She loved us each and every one just the way we are. So, I remain a thorn among many and she…she was, and always will be Our Rose.

OUR ROSE

In our Family Garden,
  among the many blooms,
God sometimes stops to pick a flower,
  for one of His many rooms.

Among the colorful blossoms,
  the one perfect bud grows,
Our precious one and only,
  Mammaw Guffey, our treasured rose.

To those who love her,
  she is cheerful, bold and bright.
The heart of our garden,
  loving and full of light.

With a spirit true and perfect,
  she gives love and does try,
To give us each our wings,
  with which to soar and fly.

She stays in the garden,
  holding our place to come home to,
A place of hope and peace,
  for when the day is through.

And in all the beauty,
  of her garden when she’s alone,
She too, longs for her own wings,
  for which to fly her Home.

God heard her silent wish,
  He gave her wings to fly,
And took her soaring Heaven-ward,
with one...soft...sigh.

He looked down and considered,
  then carefully He chose,
And from our family garden,
  He picked our sweetest Rose.



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RIDING DRAG with DEBRA COPPINGER HILL is featured each week at ALWAYS COWBOY where Debra is a Resident Western Poet. Join her and her Cowboy Friends for Cowboy Poetry, News & Events. http://alwayscowboy.net/debra_coppinger_hill_poetry.html